Long Road to Ruin
by Echante
Summary: Addison and Mark talk on the phone. ALOT. Basically all dialogue and angst with a semi-happy ending.


A/N: I was trying to write Vienna but this came out instead. I felt like writing dialogue. Basically, Addison calls up Mark to talk after Maya's wedding. This should be in the crossover section but I don't want it to be so it's not gonna. And um Pete and Addison? Really? I think Mark and Addison should be together but if I had to chose between Sam and Pete? I would go with Sam. Pete has some serious issues he needs to sort out... like the fact that he has a kid. I don't know what the hell they do with that kid if he's going at it a bunch with a bunch of people.

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**Long Road to Ruin**

"I need to talk," she says into the phone.

"So talk," he replies on the other end, "about what?"

"I don't know…" she hesitates, stutters, "Sam said something about an 'anyway friend,' you used to be mine."

He doesn't try to ask; he just sits on the line, knowing when to talk and when to listen, "I feel like I'm being pulled apart from all sides." She tells him.

"Yeah," he says it quietly under the cover of night, "me too."

"How's Sloan?" She doesn't ask it cruelly, but he flinches nonetheless.

"She left."

"I'm sorry."

"Yeah," he wants to add, 'you should be,' but he isn't that cruel.

"How's Lexie?" She asks and he coughs.

"I wouldn't know," he says and she cringes, because if they aren't even together, then what the hell was she? She's not accustomed to him not wanting her.

"Yeah… well, I'm sorry."

"You apologize too much for things that aren't your fault."

"Maybe they are."

"Addison," he's tired, "life is just something that happens."

"That's not true."

"Life isn't something you can control."

"You can."

"You can't, so stop blaming yourself for trying, you can't win at this."

She can feel the sobs coming but she chokes it back, she was never one to cry, "I want to," she whispers, clutching the chord, "I want to so bad."

"I know. I know you do."

She sighs, "Maya got married today, she is fifteen years old."

"Do you miss it?"

"What?" She asks confused.

"Being married?"

She takes a moment to contemplate and then shakes her head, forgetting that he isn't there with her, "No. Not really. I miss the comfort. I miss having the title to hide behind."

"I miss you." He says, not knowing why, but too scared to take it back. He bites into his lip.

"I miss you too sometimes," she says, "I don't really know how to live without you here."

"I'm sorry I left you."

"Hey," she says, shaking it off, "you can't help who you love."

He grits his teeth because she doesn't get it, he did love her, and he loved her too much. "You scare the shit out of me," he tells her, "I'm not used to you being there, and available."

"Do you think time changes too many things?"

"I think the world keeps spinning whether you like it or not."

"That didn't answer my question."

"I don't have an answer."

"Do you believe in equality?"

He sighs, and then answers, "No. I don't."

"Why not?"

"Because nothing is ever equal, because there's no standard to life, there's nothing to measure it by. 'One man's trash is another man's treasure' so the saying goes."

"That's true." She sighs, "I feel like everyone's trash right now."

He hesitates before he offers it quietly, slowly rolling it along the distance to her ear, "You were my treasure."

She doesn't speak so they settle into breathing, hearing each other's presence, listening to the soft click of air against a window. "Why did you cheat on me all those years ago?"

"I was fucking afraid of you, I was afraid I was losing my independence. And I honestly thought it didn't mean anything. I thought since it didn't mean anything to me, it wouldn't mean anything to you."

She nods, "Mhmm."

"Why me?" He asks her, and then elaborates, "Out of all the people in the world, why did you choose me?"

She sighs, "Because the first time I asked Derek if he believed in God, he said no, that he was too jaded to. The first time I asked you, you said you were too jaded not to. He thought he was special but everybody gives that fucking answer. People don't have faith because they think it's rebellious. Even the people who hate fucking pretension are victims of it. Everybody's a fucking hypocrite."

"Why," he stops to suck in a breath, "did you break the bet?"

"Because I knew you would break it too, it can't hurt as much if I never allowed myself to hope, can it?"

"I didn't break the fucking bet Addison." He spits it out, bitterly, "I thought you knew me well enough by then."

She stares blankly at the speaker and lowers it closing her eyes; she lifts the phone back to her face and says slowly, "I am broken. And I know you're going to snarl and tell me that isn't an excuse but Mark, I'm broken, and I feel cheap, and I feel used. I feel used by you Mark, and you never, ever made me feel cheap before but I do now. I feel torn, because I'm sleeping with Sam's best friend, and I'm in love with Naomi's ex-husband, and I'm talking to you for God knows why."

He sighs, "The first time I thought I might love you," he tells her, "was that time you got so angry at a resident you fell over. You told her that she might be your superior at the time that she might be the boss right now, but that you were destined for greatness. Then you walked away and complained about weakness. You complained about people who didn't stick up for themselves, and how people like her shouldn't be allowed to go unchallenged."

She doesn't allow him to hear, but there are tears drifting down her cheeks and she gnashes her teeth together to keep from sobbing for the person she once was.

"The second time I thought I might be in-love with you, you sat next to me at your wedding and told me that I was living in a façade."

"The first time I understood who you were," she says back, "was when you told me that the world is inherently cruel and that we make our own fortunes. That was the first time I understood that you were me. That we are the same."

"We're not the same though. I've closed myself to death but you still sting from it. I try my best to fuck everything up and you try your best to salvage it."

"But I know you Mark, you let it pound inside your soul until the air seems to bleed around you, and you look for release in inappropriate places. I pretend to salvage things but in the process they always end up fucked. We're the same."

"I don't want you to be like me Addison; I don't want that for you."

She sighs, "The first time I thought I might love you," she says, "was when you told me you would carry my pain on your back. They always called you selfish but I've never known a more selfless man."

"I've been really selfish in my life. I deserve the label."

"I miss you Mark," she says, and the tear drops seem to multiply, "I miss you so much sometimes. I'm not supposed to, you make me angry and unsure, you mess with my mind but I can't think straight without the chaos. It doesn't make sense but it just hurts so much and you were the only thing that ever numbed me."

"Eventually," he says, "It's not going to be okay to just be numbed."

"If this keeps up," she breathes, "I'm not going to make it to eventually."

He gets on an airplane the next day. He can't stay away.


End file.
